Any given planetary government may be anything but imperialistic. However, every such government can pay a modest tribute for Imperial protection on an interstellar scale.
I like to think that the Founder, Manuel Argos, would:
distribute in a popular edition Virgil's Aeneid translated into Anglic;
encourage scholars to study both contemporary physics and the Classics;
display before his palaces statues of Aeneas, Romulus, Julius, Augustus and himself.
Imperial power is based on universally applicable technology whereas Imperial values are derived from Terrestrial history. Manuel I's Jerusalem Catholic subjects might also revere Constantine who Chritianized the Roman Empire while his Buddhist subjects might instead revere the Indian Emperor Asoka who waged a war but then, after witnessing the mass deaths caused by the war, converted to Buddhism and became a philanthropical ruler. Confucians, if they still exist, might prefer the Chinese mythical Yellow Emperor, credited with originating civilized arts. (These are all Terrestrial Emperors.)
Some scholars might aspire towards a synthesis of human and other value systems. However, even some monotheisms, human, Ythrian and Merseian, are irreconcilably antithetical.
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Very flattering, how my note commenting on your previous blog piece inspired another short essay by you!
Hmmm, your remark about how, if the reigning Emperor is an able man, then things might bump along not too badly even if he was not a descendant of the Founder. I agree, with the stipulation that Hans Molitor and his sons lack of dynastic legitimacy exposes them to attack by other would be usurpers.
But, this was not wholly old Hans fault! The mere fact that the legitimate Wang dynasty collapsed very soon after the death of Josip was a bad sign of increasing instability inside the Empire. Which meant that the best people like Dominic Flandry could do was to back the most able and least bad of the contending war lords.
But, as we see in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, Emperor Hans was actually quite a decent ruler and reminded me of several texts found in Chapter III of that book The first I'll quote being: "But he had not changed either from the hero of Syrax, when the fleet he led flung back the Merseians and forced a negotiated end to a short undeclared war which had bidden fair to grow. Nor had he changed from the leader who let his personnel proclaim him Emperor--himself reluctantly, less from vainglory than a sense of workmanship, when the legitimate order of succesion had dissolved in chaos and every rival claimant was a potential disster."
What interested me here was how Hans Molitor permitted his fleet to proclaim him Emperor only after it was plain the Wang dynasty had irretrievably fallen. If he had his druthers, Hans would have preferred to be loyal the heir of Josip. The second bit about Hans I wish to quote from the same chapter is also striking: "A blunt pragmatist, uncultured and unashamed of it, shrewd rather than intelligent, he either appalled Manuel Argos or won a grudging approval, in whatever hypothetical hell or Valhalla the Founder dwelt."
To backtrack a bit, you suggested that Manuel Argos could have encouraged reading of Virgil's AENEID and the other classics as well as study of the sciences, to stimulate both loyalty to the new Empire and the gaining of scientific knowledge. And that statues of Aeneas, Romulus, Julius and Augustus Caesar and himself be placed before his palaces for the same reason already given. I agree that makes sense and would suggest adding as well statues of Charlemagne and Alfred the Great. Sbort lived tho the Carolingian Empire was, it still had aspirations and ideals which could easily be adopted by the Founder. And Alfred the Great saved Wessex, and thus England from being utterly destroayed, with all that that meant for the future.
And Poul Anderson himself thought the Terran Empire might seek inspiration from the Roman Empire, as this comment from Chunderban Desai, again from Chapter III of A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS indicates: "The Western Civilization to which ours is affiliated rose originally from the same kind of thing, that Roman Empire some of our rulers have liked to hark back to for examples of glory."
Sean
Sean,
As a matter of fact, it was legitimate heirs that I had in mind when I said things are ok if the current Emperor is capable. The trouble with a line of succession is that you don't know what you're going to get but that is when, hopefully, others cope. On a much more modest level, I have had to cover for a boss at work a couple of times.
I agree that Hans and Flandry were in a "a seizure of power is the lesser evil" situation.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Then the second paragraph of my previous note was a misunderstanding of what you had meant. I agree a line of succession under any form of government has inherent uncertainties, even granting the current head of state is an able man. Historically, the longer lived states have tried to hedge against this uncertainty by adding requirement and conditions to being either the chief of the state or the ones in line to succeed him. Law, custom, precedent, the civil service, military, aristocracies (where they existed), religious belief, etc., have all played roles in both checking and sustaining and supporting the leaders of a state.
Sean
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